‘Postmodernism is little more than the intellectual equivalent of rap music.’

“Postmodernism is little more than the intellectual equivalent of rap music. Just as rap music often glorifies the brutal irresponsibility that flows from the social disorganization of the inner city, the postmodernist finds freedom in the panic and disorientation promoted by ever-changing, uncommitted, temporary relations and selves. In the rap musician and the postmodernist intellectual alike, liberal individualism’s hostility toward society and its affinity for anomie lives on.” pg 71 in Hearn, F. 1997. Moral order and social disorder : the American search for civil society. Sociological imagination and structural change. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Some quotes I find so amusing that I just want to share them. From what I have read of this book so far, Hearn argues that both America’s market economy and Sweden’s welfare state end up promoting individual freedom, and therefore creating anomie. Hearn’s solution is social capital (Coleman style). This book draws on empirical work as well as selected social and political theory to build its rather clear argument. I am rather amazed at the clear conclusions he claims the empirical work has drawn.